Associate Professor of Music, Vocal Coach and Opera Music Director

Bonnie Koestner has served as pianist, vocal coach, chorus master and assistant conductor in over two hundred productions for opera companies throughout the United States. For the San Francisco Opera she prepared the American premieres of Tippett's King Priam and Reimann's Ghost Sonata, along with more traditional repertoire. She was Chorus Master and Head of Music Staff at Florida Grand Opera in Miami, and on the music staff of many other companies, including Baltimore, Atlanta, Palm Beach, Utah, Lake George, Sacramento, Sarasota, Des Moines Metro, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Shreveport. While at Nevada Opera she developed the Nevada Opera Studio, a highly successful education and outreach program that brings opera to approximately 20,000 students per year. Ms. Koestner was also the head opera coach for sixteen years at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She was Chorus Master and coach for Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, New York from 1997-2011, and was on the music staff of Central City Opera in Colorado for the summers of 2012 and 2013. In 2014 she joined the faculty of the Oberlin in Italy summer program in Arezzo.

Ms. Koestner is a graduate of Lawrence University and holds an M. M. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has also studied at L'Università per Stranieri in Perugia, Italy.